Help wanted: Programmer Explanation!

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The Wash. Post article yesterday included the most incredible dichotomies. Can anyone explain some of the contradictions?

"There MAY be things thats suffer interruption"

"A handful MAY fail temporarily"

"this COULD cause systems to transmit bad data,malfunction"

OK, please explain the MAYs and COULDs--please!!!

"Recognizing the---DANGER OF A CATASTROPHIC FAILURE---in the city, congress gave $62 million to ACCELERATE the work"

"but even with an army of programmers, success is far from assured"

"19 out of 73 are not even half way done"

Ok--- with all of this info. why these responses??

"Mayor Williams reasonbly comfortable"

"Convince people New years no Chaos"

"Our intent not to alarm, but to put people at EASE"

"Centuries most HYPED event"

How does all this make sense from the same article?

-- David Butts (dciinc@aol.com), June 29, 1999

Answers

It doesn't make sense. Welcome to the wonderfully wacky world of why2kay.

-- regular (zzz@z.z), June 29, 1999.

The answers are not in the statements, but in the mentality that made the statements. To put it simply...it's the 9-man month rule. If you throw more resources at it, you can finish it faster.

But from the programmer point of view this makes as much sense as...if it takes 1 woman 9 months to have a baby, then 9 women can do it in 1 month.

Therefore, more resources don't make the work go any faster, and too many resources slow it down. And if you don't believe it, think about your own job and what it would be like to bring in someone who knows absolutly nothing about your company. How long would it take the newbie to learn enough to be useful?

DJ

-- DJ (reality@check.com), June 29, 1999.


DJ, Exactly so!! It is why DC won't (in fact can't) finish work in time. The $70+ million won't help and will actually slow things down. Tick, tick, tick..................

-- RD. ->H (drherr@erols.com), June 29, 1999.

I disagree somewhat, D.J. I've been on lots of contracts wherein I was productive the very first day, and there is some sense in dividing the tasks to many programmers (if the tasks are easily divisible.)

What I've seen more of, however, is: When a firm (government, etc.) puts out an order for many many workers, the body-shops (recruiters, headhunters, pimps...fill in your own name for these folks) fall over backwards getting folks to the job before the next guy. It's how they make their living, ya know. In so doing, they don't do a thorough job of screening the folks they send. Two years or so ago, my pimp called and asked me to provide a telephone technical for someone he was considering help out at the client at which I'd been placed. The project was a separate one from the one on which my team was working, but I'd already seen two contractors sleeping on the job on that other project (both provided by MY pimp.) After asking 4 simple questions of the interviewee, the guy admitted that he really wasn't interested in a job at all, but heard that the firm was simply looking for bodies.

To answer David's question: Even if an army of GREAT programmers do the job, things COULD be missed, but when an order goes out for the quantity of programmers required for this last-minute project from hell, well, I wouldn't count on the quality of programmers being the greatest.

Anita

-- Anita (spoonera@msn.com), June 29, 1999.


Its probably a scam. Washington has operated on the 'federal emergency money' system for years. Find a problem, declare it is an emergency, and ask Congress for the money to fix it. Has been going on since I was a kid. I think someone already posted the followup 'asking for Federal help' article that ran in the Post today.

Yeah, color me cynical today. I have seen that horse circle the barn once too often to be impressed.

Shoot - lets move the capitol to St. Louis, and let the city in the swamp die a natural death.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), June 29, 1999.



I believe the post article qualifies as :

A broad synthesis that captures the facts and not the drama of the moment....

My comments are interwoven in brackets [ ]

UNITED STATES INFORMATION AGENCY (USIA). * * * * * * * * * * * * *

24 June 1999

INFORMATION AN IMPORTANT WEAPON IN FIGHT AGAINST Y2K COMPUTER BUG (Experts urge public education campaign to explain problem) [experts fear bank run, try to use spin to prevent]

By Judy Aita

USIA United Nations Correspondent

United Nations -- Public explanation of plans for testing and renovating computer systems and contingency plans to correct Y2K computer failures are critical to the success of efforts to deal with the impending global millennium-change computer problem, according to international computer experts. [why is that? i thought this was really a coding problem?]

Building public confidence that the so-called Y2K computer bug can and will be fixed with a minimum of problems on December 31, 1999 is as important as the work on the computers themselves, experts dealing with Y2K readiness say. [so you're trying to tell me that some guy who is working on mainframe problems with a fixed deadline thinks that public relations are a problem for him?]That is why one of the main goals of the June 21-23 international Y2K national coordinators conference at UN headquarters was to impress upon the 173 national coordinators attending it of the key role public awareness will play in increasing Y2K readiness and preventing panic. [Panic, what panic? Why would people panic? I thought everything was fixed?]

The "Y2K bug" is the problem which will affect some older computers, automated control devices and software which use only the last two digits of a year in the year field of their computer codes. Unless these devices are properly reprogrammed, the "Y2K bug" would bite when their internal calendars make the transition from 1999 to the year 2000, which ends in two zeroes. They could just stop working or inaccurately process data, "thinking" that the new year is 1900 instead of 2000. [How sad is it that at this late date, you are still explaining what the problem is?]

The computer experts believe potential public panic, prompting such things as runs on banks and the hoarding of food, water, and fuel the resulting problems could be worse that the Y2K threat itself, the experts said. [ask the parents of the three kids from Bellingham Washington who were immolated in a gasoline pipeline explostion last week due to computer failures if they think hoarding is worse than losing their children. how dare you state this crap]

Therefore, they stressed to national Y2K coordinators at the UN conference that they must gain the general public's confidence regarding the problem while ensuring that all government agencies, industries, public utilities and financial institutions are working to fix it. [Now how are they gonna do that? They seem to be pretty lame when it comes to this computer stuff.]

David Bohrman, executive vice president of CNN, said that the Y2K story is more than just a computer or technology story. "The important part for most journalists ... is this is a social story, it's a cultural story, it's a psychology story, and it's also a story of exploitation or potential exploitation of people. [Um, how are they being exploited? Oh, he must mean those dumb Y2K computer fixer guys, the ones who are buying all the damn food and guns and solar panels]

"It's a really big news story," Bohrman said. And the media have a responsibility to figure out how to get accurate information to the public. [They could start by asking some hard questions instead of accepting BS reports at face value]

As hard as people are working to fix the problem "things are gong to happen on their own, things are going to happen that were forgotten about," Bohrman noted. "The news media needs to play a role in telling people about Y2K problems, what can happen, and that it's not gong [absolutely must be a Fruedian Typo here Gong!] to be the end of the world." [while i don't think the world's gonna end, i don't think it's gonna be a cakewalk either]

Journalists should also look out for, and write about, unscrupulous individuals or companies who try to take advantage of the problem and sell unnecessary items to unwitting consumers, Bohrman said. [yes these people exist, scum are always out there, but what about all the damn FAA lies? Nobody gives a crap if air travel is safe, but we wanna make damn sure that no one gets fleeced on some gold coins]

"Frankly there are some ridiculous things that are being peddled to the public. There is a Y2K compliant water cooler, for instance," he said. [Duh]

News coverage will shift at the end of December from providing information and giving advice to "looking at what is happening as the Y2K moment wraps around the world," Bohrman said. [sounds like time for international cafe delight to me!]

Eric Auchard, a technology reporter for Reuters news service, questioned whether so much focus should be put on the December 31 moment as a "drop dead date." Computer problems have "cropped up before and will continue to crop up into the new millennium," he said. [hey Eric where do you think the frigging problem came from in the first place? It most assuredly is a drop dead deadline you dope]

Auchard said that "many computer companies here are beginning to express a greater degree of optimism about how they are going to weather this problem. In some cases their optimism is fueled by the fact that they are making a lot of money out of fixing the year 2000 issues" in such ways as providing computer consulting services. [who? Intel? Infomagic? IBM? Microserft?]

Nevertheless, Reuters has instructed editors throughout the world to organize the wire service's news coverage, [that's code for spin baby spin, disco inferno, spin baby spin] he said. "We have many reporters looking at year 2000 issues on the technological side as well as the political and cultural sides."

"The year 2000 is an issue in which a better informed public is a more confident and calm public," Roger Ferguson, governor of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, said. The Y2K bug is "very much now a problem of public confidence," he said. [complete crap, the problem is one of code and chips and whether you have fixed them. while panic will inevitably worsen the eventual impact, the problem is not you and your hair trigger stockpile instincts fair reader]

"Full and comprehensive information is critical in making sure plans are accurate and meaningful," he said. "Inadequate detail in a business environment can well lead to negative perceptions in the marketplace which have pronounced economic consequences." [if the general public knew for a second how bad this stuff really is, they would panic and the economy would collapse right now instead of 6 months from now]

A recent Federal Reserve survey of public perceptions showed that those who had a greater exposure to the year 2000 issue were more likely to believe that any problems that emerge will be short-lived and subject to repair, Ferguson noted. In banking areas, those who were aware of the issues felt that their banks could probably deal with any problems that emerged. [hmm, that doesn't jibe with the one Yardeni did, the one that surveyed the people who know best as to how this whole wonderful project is going]

Ferguson said that since in the public will become aware of and take an interest in Y2K at different times, "it is important to maintain a steady flow of accurate information to the public. [you must reinforce the calm Luke, the Calm....I am your father Luke......]

"In many cases companies, financial institutions, and entire countries seem to be reticent to disclose the degree of their preparedness," he said.[Um, why would that be the case? They're hosed!] "I think that ends up undermining public confidence because it allows for false information to fill the vacuum where good information would be helpful." [so you think they'd step out then and sing the good news wouldn't you? mmm, I don't hear any singing do you?]

Public relations experts indicate that public perceptions will form at some point and be less subject to revision, Ferguson also said. "And since we do not know when that will occur, I think it is important for accurate information to always and continuously be available." [we don't know the exact point at which the public is really gonna stop believing the crap we're feeding them, so keep spooning just in case]

"The media have a special obligation [since when? why? because they believe you? because they're to dumb to know that they're currently part of the problem?] ... to engage in balanced and accurate reportage, not attempting to hide important facts but not seeking out the most sensational coverage either," he said. "A broad synthesis that captures the facts and not the drama of the moment is most useful. [Don't dig to deep, you might scare someone] Link: http://www.usia.gov/cgi-bin/washfile/display.pl?p=/prod...

-- Jim Smith (cyberax@ix.netcom.com), June 29, 1999.


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